Listen to Jason Miller's full interview with Brian Crew, associate director for human capital planning and solutions at the Transportation Department.

The Transportation Department is trying to fix a leadership problem that has long
plagued the government.

The agency no longer will promote employees to leadership positions who have put
the time in or are experts in their field, but not in leadership.

Brian Crew, the associate director for human capital planning and solutions at the
Transportation Department, said too often agencies don't have good leaders in
place, who also can lead well.

Crew, who spoke recently at a human capital management conference, said DoT is
focusing on leadership accountability, specifically in the Senior Executive
Service, and developing new hiring tools to ensure the leaders they do bring in
are extraordinarily qualified.

Initially, DoT will focus on its current leaders to ensure they are set up for
success.

"What we are looking to do is make sure leadership behaviors and performance are a
higher percentage of how that leader is rated, not just looking at the results of
the overall organization, but how they lead, how they manage their people and
whether they are doing the right things in terms of diversity and inclusion,
rewarding and recognizing so that they are actually held accountable for doing
what that SES status is about leading," Crew said. "So right now what we are
looking at doing is trying to figure out what is the right percentage, right
balance there. We know it needs to be higher. We are talking that over with
leaders and HR experts."

He said he expects to offer a proposal to DoT senior management in the next few
months.

Survey shows shortcomings

Leadership and training were among DoT's focus areas in light of recent Employee
Viewpoint surveys and Best Places to Work surveys.

In the 2013 EVS,
DoT scored a 60, which places it toward the top half of all agencies. Its score
is up from 51 in 2008.

DoT also scored well in the 2013 Best Places to Work
survey put out by the Partnership for Public Service. DoT ranked eighth among
large agencies, but dropped 2.70 points from its 2012 score.

Part of the review process is for certain workers to identify they don't want to
move into management ranks because they are not well-suited for that type of job.

Crew, who also is the agency's chief learning officer and chief of diversity, said
this may mean getting current senior executives out of their positions and moved
back to operational roles, where they were happier and more successful.

Part of the review process DoT is using includes a 360-degree review of the senior
leaders. This way the SESer can get feedback from their supervisors, their
employees and others who are at the same level in the organization and key
stakeholders outside agency that the SESer works with regularly.

New tools for training

Crew said DoT tested out the 360 review process at several bureaus over the last
two years, and now is ready to expand it across the entire department.

"Some people are excited to receive that kind of feedback and know how they are
doing from the various stakeholders," he said. "Others are a little afraid and
that's rightfully so because we haven't done it with a lot of people for while.
But definitely it will help them regardless, and as they get used to it, doing it
year-after-year, they will see the value in it and it will help them get better."

Along with revising the review process, Crew said DoT is improving its training
processes.

He said DoT implemented a new executive coaching program for current SESers.

"It entails an expert in leadership actually working with the leader to help them
improve their leadership in areas they are not strong, working with them to be
better. If they come in and have a problem connecting with their employees, they
can connect better. If they don't communicate well with their employees, they can
communicate better," Crew said. "It really involves looking at the person and
figuring out what about them is inhibiting their ability to lead and how they can
improve that so they can be a better leader."

Crew added the 360-degree review helps inform the leaders of their shortcomings,
and they will receive help from an internal or external coach.

He said the coach will help them figure out why co-workers, supervisors and direct
reports said the things they did in the review and offer suggestions for
improvement. The coach also will follow the SESer around to meetings and provide
input on how the manager could do better.